Janita Lawrence - The Memory of Water

“How did you know Eve?” I venture.

“You’re the writer, then,” she says, not without distaste. She has an Afrikaans accent and speaks in a kind of undulating high pitch, rolling her r’s and raising her vowels as only Afrikaans women can.

“Yes.”

“Harris.”

“Yes. Slade.”

She wrinkles her nose.

“Have you written anything I would know?” she asks.

A cent for every time someone asked me that.

“Doubt it,” I lie.

“Irma Shaw,” she says, shoving her flabby hand out at me like a Nazi.

I recoil. It’s cold and too soft, like toad skin. Tofu. Testicles.

“I’m Evelyn’s tannie . Not that she knew it!”

“I’m sorry?”

“We didn’t see a lot of her. She never took the time out of her…” she clears her throat, “busy schedule. To come and kuier .”

So much for not speaking ill of the dead.

“Yes,” I nod, “she was a very hard worker. She was always working. She was a workaholic.”

I know I’m rambling. I don’t know where these words are coming from.

“Not even at Christmas,” she sighs, fingering the gold cross on her chest. “The Holy Lord’s birthday. Can you imagine? Gena-a-a-a-ade. Haar eie familie ! Don’t get me wrong; I don’t speak badly of no one. It’s just that, ag man, we missed her!”

“I never had the pleasure of speaking to Eve about her hometown,” I say, “Where is it?”

As she hesitates a grey man puts a hand on her shoulder and whispers in her ear. She nods and turns to walk away, turns back, and says, “It was nice to meet you, Slade.”

The sun gets hotter on my skin. Damn African summers. I decide I need to look for alcohol. There is a man in tweed bringing out clean teacups.

“Excuse me,” I say with a chuckle, trying as much as possible to not look like an alcoholic, “Any chance of something stronger here?”

He looks up, smiles, but doesn’t speak. Uncomfortable, I smile; typical of me to ask the only deaf/mute guy. He walks back into the house. I think I may have to leave soon. I’m not sure that I can stand here for another minute. I stare vaguely into the glum garden, planning my escape excuse. There’s a gentle tap on my back and I turn around to see the smiling tweed-man. He hands me a bottle of cheap whisky and a glass of old-fashioned ice. The opaque kind, from metal ice-trays with the handle running down the centre dividing the cubes. Smooth and white, as if someone has frozen smoke inside.

I take it from him and he walks away before I get to say thanks. I don’t recognise the dusty label at all but I don’t care. I would drink methylated spirits right now if it was the only drink on offer. I pour a good four fingers and put the bottle on the table. Sharing is caring.

I hear a familiar voice coming from inside the house.

“…She was one of my FAVOURITE artists… ”

Sifiso. I feel I could do with a friendly face.

“…Very TALENTED and also very LOVELY WOMAN…”

He strolls outside and winces at the bright sunshine. He sees me and walks over, puts his right hand in mine and his left on my back. It’s very comforting. I see for the first time that he is probably a very good father to his kids.

“I’m so SORRY, Slade,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry. I know how much you LOVED Eve. How CLOSE you were.”

My throat constricts. I try to swallow the ache but it doesn’t go away. I am overwhelmed by my gratitude to this man, for coming today, for touching me, for saying those words.

“I can’t believe this has happened,” I whisper to him. I reek of desperation.

“Senseless,” he says and shakes his head. “It makes me wonder what KIND of COUNTRY we are living in, with all this violence. Eish , it’s a TRAGEDY.” He is still shaking his head, like a dashboard dog. “It makes me worried for my KIDS, man.”

I nod. False face must hide what false heart doth know. Only when I am overwhelmed do I quote Shakespeare.

I wonder what Sifiso would think if he knew I had planned her murder.

I finally start to feel the warm sliding effects of the whisky. Bless you Jesus. The muscles in my back begin to unknit. Perhaps I’ll introduce myself to a few more relatives and try to find out a little more about Eve. It will be my last opportunity and I need all the closure I can muster. I see Frank arrive; he stands in the doorway. Glad to see another face I recognise, I wave at him. If I had a tail it would be wagging. He flashes a look of pure menace at me. Before I know what’s going on, he stalks over and punches me right in the face, smashing my nose. My glass goes flying and I hear it shattering on the slasto. I drop to the grass and hot blood shoots out of my nostrils. Beyond the black stars I hear Sifiso yelling at Frank and Frank yelling back. Frank shouts down at me “You sonofabitch! You said it was for your book! You said you weren’t really going to do it!” he shoves me with his foot.

Everyone stops what they’re doing to gawk at the three of us. “This is no kind of behaviour for a funeral,” I can imagine the old farts saying with quivering jowls. “You’d think they’d show a little respect.”

“What are you TALKING about, man?” shouts Sifiso. “Have you gone CRAZY?”

The blood is shiny on the green grass. Wet, shiny rubies.

Painting the roses red.

Eve was my Queen of Hearts.

“You should be asking Slade that!”

Sifiso is impatient by nature and seems ready to punch out Frank’s lights, despite being a good two feet shorter than him.

I get to my knees and hold the bridge of my nose, trying to stem the flow. It doesn’t work and the front of my shirt is soon dyed red.

“You’ve made me an accomplice!” he yells at me, spit flying into the air.

I feel something inside me click, swivel, burst, dissolve. Something breaks, tears, starts leaking air like a bicycle puncture. Something changes inside me forever. I am damaged. Not because of Frank’s words or his fist in my face, not because of Eve’s tawdry funeral or mute dressed in tweed, but because this is the moment that everything makes sense and nothing makes sense. I see who I am but I don’t know who that is. My mind crumples up, and I am powerless to stop it.

“An accomplice to WHAT, Frank?” yells Sifiso.

“Keep your voice down,” I say to Sifiso through gritted teeth. Still in my position of surrender, I turn to Frank.

“You think I did it?” I ask him. “What kind of person do you think I am? You know how much I cared for her.”

Frank snorts.

A dark-haired beauty arrives. She has a red lipstick smile and a tattoo on her arm that peeks out from under a silk sleeve. She adjusts her sunglasses and lights a cigarette. Despite my situation I feel drawn to her; something in her face and body language strikes me. She feels my eyes on her and looks straight at me, at my crimson shirt, and I look away.

Frank speaks in low tones now: “All I know is that she was killed exactly the same way you described it. And I find that frikkin’ weird, what do you say?”

Sifiso erupts.

“What do I SAY? I say you’d better tell me what the hell’s going on here before I pop a cap in someone’s ass.”

Okay, he didn’t really say that. Sifiso is not ghetto like that. I just thought it sounded good coming from a short, angry black man.

“What do I SAY?” he really said, “I say you’d better tell me what the hell this is all about!”

At home I peel off my blood-soaked shirt and throw it in the bin. I have a gentle shower (Amazon Rainforest™) and watch all the brown pigment run from my body in a neat line down into the drain. I inspect my chest hair for any leftover blood and wonder briefly why we still have chest hair. I would have thought that we’ve evolved beyond it by now but then, remembering the day’s events, my question seems to be answered.